Login
South Australia boosts free legal aid in COVID-19 response
South Australians will now be able to access further free legal services as the COVID-19 outbreak hits the community harder.
Naomi Neilson
Attorney-General Vickie Chapman announced legal aid services would be boosted to allow for more capacity of its free telephone and online legal services.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
“The virus is turning lives upside down and causing many legal headaches, but increased assistance is now available and it’s free,” AG Chapman said.
The services are prioritising COVID-19 legal enquiries about employment, family violence and welfare, landlord and tenant issues, mortgage stress, consumer protection, abuse of elderly people, immigration visas and credit and family law disputes over childcare.
Ms Chapman said legal aid also has specialist legal teams to assist victims of all domestic violence incidents, and those teams are “well prepared” to cope with COVID-19 impacts.
Legal aid lawyers will help domestic violence victims with issues including debt, disputes in family law over children, intervention orders and tenancy agreements.
“Sadly, we anticipate there may be an increase in domestic violence as a result of these measures that require people to stay in their homes as much as possible,” she said.
This news follows an announcement from NSW government that it had teamed up with Legal Aid NSW and LawAccess NSW to provide free legal advice on COVID-19 impacts.
